In many data processing systems today, computer communication networks are provided which allow for communications across a wide range of different computer systems. In many of these data processing systems the various different computers of the data processing system, and in some cases even applications running within the same computer will communicate with each other using an enterprise service bus, also referred to as ESB technology. In the enterprise service bus systems messages are sent through a common pathway, sometimes referred to as a bus, and these messages can be used to provide for communications between separate applications. However, in many instances there is no provision for sharing the communications among different processing platforms, and the bus generally requires a scheduler to assign priorities to schedule the flow of traffic through the bus. In these prior systems each application platform generally runs in a separate environment with dedicated services and is not integrated with applications running in other environments.
For example, in the context of a brokerage business many separate order entry applications can be used within a data processing system. Varied applications are used to open accounts, verify users, place and execute orders for different security types and so forth. Many of the basic operations used in such business function applications are the same across different system platforms. However, there is frequently no way for different platforms environments such as mainframe, UNIX and Windows platforms to share or re-use the same functions, or services across such platforms. Each application requires its own specific instructions, and code for each business function. Because of the platform dependencies, an experienced support team knowledgeable about each application and each platform is needed to fix problems for each application. If service utilities could be shared without requiring unique coding for a particular business function running on a particular platform, the cost of operating, training and maintaining these data processing systems could be greatly reduced by making the systems environment more simple and uniform.